Online users often encounter unsolicited, unwelcomed, phishing, spoofing, and/or deceiving messages (collectively referred to as malicious messages or malicious information). To detect and mitigate malicious messages, some data processing networks rely on the online users to report malicious messages. However, not all malicious messages are reported, and some reports are false positive (e.g., reporting messages that are not malicious).
Some data processing networks employ automated (e.g., not relying on user reporting) techniques to detect and mitigate malicious messages. However, on a social network, perpetrators of malicious information may exploit the social connections of online users to avoid detection. For example, these sophisticated malicious information perpetrators may create many fake accounts (e.g., sybil accounts) and establish social connections with the sybil accounts.
To further disguise the sybil accounts to avoid detection, fake positive feedback may be associated with the sybil accounts (e.g., initiating and/or receiving “likes,” “+1,” comments, reposts, re-shares, etc.) to inflate the reputation and/or standing of these accounts on a network. Sybil accounts with a high reputation are used to spread malicious messages undetected and carry out online attacks.